(Originally posted January 2015)
Translated from “La Nymphe du château de Wangenbourg,” from the Castles of France website, legends section.
Once, a long time ago in Wangenbourg castle, there lived a quarrelsome lord of dubious morality. On his return trip from a military campaign with his comrades-in-arms, he spied a lovely young woman in a nearby field of wildflowers. With a bouquet of daisies in her arms, she shone with beauty.
The lord was seized with a desire to have her by any means. Our princess, in addition to being beautiful, had been blessed at her birth by a faerie and everything about her was breathtaking. Numerous suitors had tried to seduce her, but being too young for marriage, she rejected each one.
The lord of Wangenbourg, however, used everything at his disposal to conquer this magnificent creature, this beauty of nature. As a result, she was conquered and accepted his proposal. He promised to cherish only her and to no longer covet other hearts. They were happy, and despite the burdens of the life of a lord, he kept his promise.
But one day he fell back into caprice and sowed his wild oats among other damsels, and thus our recidivist took up the rhythm of his former life. Our princess sorrowed greatly and even despaired. She decided to cleanse herself from the stain of his dishonor at the Nideck Waterfall which she knew well. But Wangenbourg is a long journey from Nideck for a frail princess on foot. Along the way she injured herself several times on low-hanging branches, sharp rocks, and thorns. It seemed to her that the flames of hell had risen from the ground to burn her. The forest was so thick that the sun’s rays barely penetrated the gloom.
When she arrived, exhausted, drained by fatigue and grief, her limbs were so weary that she slipped on the stones at the top of the waterfall and fell into the void.
Her good faerie, having gotten wind of her misfortunes, had trailed her closely and arrived just in time to snatch her from plummeting to her death. The faerie wondered what to do with this unfortunate but sublime princess who was forever burdened by these vile men. Then a brilliant idea occurred to her, and she transformed the girl into a Nymph.
And ever since that day, inhabitants of the surrounding countryside tell the tale of a white shade who dances on the waterfall’s mist, warning travelers of approaching storms.
I found another version of this tale in the book Dragons, fantômes, et trésors cachés : légendes, traditions et contes d’Alsace by Guy Trendel, published in 1988. Trendel’s telling returns to a time when nobility lived at Nideck. The story begins in a familiar vein: the family longed for a child until finally they were blessed with a daughter. They chose her godmother with care: a faerie who then blessed her with beauty. But then, when she had grown into a beautiful young woman who lived to pick flowers and wander the woods, she was spied by knight who had taken up residence in the castle near Wangenbourg. One day, while hunting, he happened upon this beauty in the woods, and he snatched her up, kidnapping her and taking her back to lock her up with him in his castle. She tried to convince him to let her return to her family, but in vain.
Days passed and the knight used all his wits to win her heart, and finally he succeeded. The very night she lost her heart to him, her faerie godmother appeared to plead with her to escape, but the beauty would not listen.
Eventually, the knight grew bored of this game and tired of his captive. To be rid of her, he accused her of cheating on him with one of his comrades-in-arms. Finally, after pleading and begging him to believe her innocence, he declared that he was ready to forget everything if only she went and filled a jug full of water from the waterfall at Nideck.
Happy to have a chance to prove herself to him, the beauty set off on her three day journey. But when she leaned over the cascade to fill the jar, it became so heavy that it pulled her over the edge into the void. Thus the faerie found her before she could plummet to her death, but distraught by the idea of evil men taking advantage of her goddaughter, she transformed the maiden into an ondine who now remains to dance in the spray and foam of the falls.
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